Sony A7 III – The VolksKamera

It Isn’t Always This Exciting

The Sony A7 III has to be one of the most hotly anticipated new camera releases for some time. The reason is simple: mid range cameras impact a lot of photographers. They tend to be relevant to the consumer, prosumer and professional markets (to varying extents) and this camera is arguably the best example of this since the Nikon D750. Perhaps ‘ever’.

The Sony A7 III isn’t a niche flagship, like the big and heavy Nikon D5 or Canon 1DX II. It’s more practical for more people and will be sold in much larger numbers. However, it would be fair to say that cameras of this price bracket aren’t always exciting releases. Some are downright boring. Specifications are often conservative and upgrades are evolutionary, with manufacturers being careful not to cannibalise sales higher up in their product range. Once again, Sony has stuck two fingers up at this conventional wisdom and released an absolute belter. This may not be a shock, but I’m still pleased to see that despite Sony’s release cycle slowing on the A7 series, they haven’t ‘gone all Canon’ on us. I say this, because I see Canon as by far the worst offender when it comes to releasing lukewarm, hobbled cameras a year or two after the market was crying out for something better than what they ended up getting. That’s well deserved praise for Sony and a well-earned ouch for Canon.

I know this sounds harsh, but just look at the Canon 6D II. It took Canon five years to release the upgrade and, when they did, it arrived with sensor technology developed alongside cave painting. The 5D IV came with a vastly improved sensor, but miserable buffer, a mean frame rate, old tech card slots and a whopping price tag (at least in the UK). If the user base feels disappointed by new releases, the impact goes well beyond the sales of that specific camera. It affects our perception of and trust in the company as a whole. Are they pushing the technology envelope and trying to give users the best they have, or are they cynically hobbling cameras to prop up the sales of top end models? What manufacturers like Canon seem to have missed is that few people with a 6D II budget will go and buy a 5D IV because that’s the only way to get the more than 12 stops of Dynamic Range (DR). Potential 5D IV buyers will generally not buy a camera (1D X II) weighing nearly twice as much, for a much higher price, to get a slightly better buffer either. The end result of Canon’s marketing strategy is simply that it disenfranchises it’s existing user base by forcing them into ‘no-win-no-smile’ scenarios again and again. Any Canon shooter struggling with 5D IV pricing couldn’t simply downgrade to the Canon 6D II and sacrifice frame rate, buffer and build quality whilst holding onto a first rate sensor. 6D Mk I upgraders and 5D III downgraders got sucker punched with a 6D II sensor that actually has less DR than the original 2012 model (and still only one card slot). Sony has done the very opposite of all this with their recent releases and I will explain why. Please note that I will not be discussing video and I will not be teasing apart specs. I will instead take a more ‘birds-eye view’ of this camera and what I think it means.

Why am I so excited about the the A7 III?

This is simple: Sony has released an even better specifications list than most people were excitedly hoping for. 24MP, 7fps, upgraded Mk III chassis (as per A7R III), improved AF were the specs floating about. What we got was the Mk III chassis (with nothing trimmed off whatsoever), 10 fps (both in mechanical and electronic modes and with 14 bit readout), a brand new 24MP BSI sensor that offers more DR over the previous generation and the same A9 derived AF system that has wowed everyone including the skeptics. In short, it’s an absolutely dynamite spec. Sony has chosen to provide a phenomenal jack-of-all-trades camera to it’s user base rather than artificially push buyers elsewhere in their product range. Nikon did the very same thing with the D750 and D850 and I hugely respect Nikon for the same reasons. However, it would be a mistake to think Sony just lacks the business acumen of Canon. Instead, they have just differentiated their products better. I’ll come back to this.

So Who Is the A7 III For?

It is for most people. From the specs, experience with the Sony A7R III and early reviews, we can expect the AF system to be genuinely superb. We can expect the new 24MP sensor to be class leading and 24MP is enough for everyone apart from very serious landscape and product photographers who need the highest levels of detail in their files. The buffer is good (about 40 RAW + JPEGs at 10fps), the battery life is excellent (up to 710+, according to CIPA standards) and the list goes on. It’s for everyone who doesn’t need the extremes of speed (enter the Sony A9) or the extremes of resolution (the A7R III). What the Sony line up also means is that you can generalise and specialise seamlessly. The A7 III and the A7R III are identical on the outside. The buttons are in the same place, the grip is the same and (I am guessing), the menus are either identical or so close that it makes no difference. Shooting these two cameras side by side is absolutely doable without swearing or missing shots. In fact, this is the idea. Even the Sony A9, which most notably has an extra dial on the left of the top plate, is so close in layout, it too can be used with ease, once the small additions have been noted. This is smart and, amazingly, this isn’t something all manufacturers are doing. Try shooting on location when all your cameras have their play buttons, C (custom), or Fn (function) buttons in different places. I was critical of the A9 being in the same chassis as the A7 series and I still think that, as an outright sports/wildlife camera, this is a shortcoming. However, within the larger product line up, I can see why Sony did it.

I haven’t mentioned price yet, which is excellent considering what the camera offers. Yes, it is more than the Mk II and Mk I, but it is a more fully featured camera and arguably brings the A7 III up to level with the A7R III, rather than a little below (remember how the Sony A7 II did not have continuous eye AF tracking and AF was generally slower?). Lets compare it to the Canon 5D IV for a moment, which still retails in the UK for around 70-80% more. As far as I can see the A7 III is the better camera in more areas than it is worse.

Build quality. The 5D IV is more solid and resilient. If you play conkers with cameras on their neck straps, or go to war, the 5D IV will definitely hold up better. For everyone else, it won’t matter.

Weather sealing. The Sony A7 III is not likely to be as well sealed as the 5D IV. As some online tests and strip downs of the A7R III and A9 have shown, weather sealing on the bottom plate it essentially absent from the Mk III generation of Sony body. Very few people will wreck their Sony A7 III bodies with splashes of water or rain, but of those who do, I suspect a 5D IV would have come off better. Neither can go swimming of course.

Resolution. The Sony A7 III has 24MP and the Canon has 30MP. I doubt this will be a show stopper for anyone either way: editing hundreds of 30MP files is not much harder on the computer than 24MP. Equally 30MP offers only a very subtle improvement in detail. Both are ‘general purpose’ sensors, perfectly suited to most applications.

Battery. The Canon 5D IV will last around 900 shots, whereas the Sony rates at 700+ (LCD) and 600+ (EVF), according to the CIPA standard. The gap is much smaller than it used to be, however. Also, mirrorless cameras tend to run down their batteries by powering the EVF or LCD all the time. If you switch the EVF to eye sensor, they do a lot better. If you are shooting a massive number of images at one time (sports/fashion) they can actually rate higher than DSLRs.

Autofocus in very low light, especially tracking: we need to see, but I suspect the Canon will hold a slight advantage here.

Where are the Sony A7 III’s advantages, despite only costing 59% as much?

We can ignore the smaller and lighter mirrorless discussion, because that’s a more general point.

Frame Rate. 10 fps vs 7fps. Does this matter? For many people, yes, IMHO it does. 7fps is modest, but 10 fps is quick. Those three intermediary frames mean a lot more ‘perfect’ captures are bagged. The difference between my X-T2 with booster (11fps) and the 5D IV I used was night and day.

Buffer: the The Sony A7 III is almost double when shooting RAW + JPEG. That’s a lot.

Sensor performance: There isn’t a lot in it, but if the same improvements we’ve seen on the A7R III come to the A7 III, I think the The Sony A7 III will have an easy stop more DR at base ISO and possibly a stop or so better high ISO performance compared to the 5D IV. Don’t get me wrong, the Canon 5D IV sensor is lovely and I’d be lying if I said I did not subjectively like its results A LOT. However, any extra imaging horsepower is always welcome when the lights dim, or the sun burns especially bright! Sony is also coming on leaps and bounds with regard to colour science, which really, really matters to people photographers.

Tracking AF. The tracking AF under everything but very poor lighting remains to be seen. However, if it is anything like the A7R III it will be easily as good as the 5D IV with notable advantages: you can see which focus points are active and what the camera is actually focusing on in continuous AF. Despite years and years of frustration from professional Canon users, this is a critical feature Canon still holds back from their 5D IV and lower models. You just have to trust that the 5D IV is focusing in the right spot, because unlike in AF-S mode, in AF-C the focus spots don’t light up red for a split second. Even if they did, if they they go out, you can still lose your focus point in dim conditions. With the Sony bodies they twinkle away in green and you can see what the camera is doing. This matters, because you can correct things when it stops doing what you want.

Continuous Eye AF. This will get portrait, wedding, family and ‘parent’ photographers an awful lot more sharp files. DSLR versions don’t come close in performance. With the Sony bodies, you can stay locked onto the eye regardless of whether they move or you move (or both). When shooting at portrait distances with, for example, a 85mm f1.4 lens, with a DSLR, you have to focus on the eye and maintain the eye at the same spot in the frame. This keeps the eye under the same AF spot so that the AF-C can do its thing. However, if the eye moves away from the AF spot, the DSLR will now keep the eyebrow or nose in focus. They just aren’t smart enough, or when they try to be smart, aren’t nearly responsive or fast enough, or you have to be in live view at a low frame rate, or (insert all the compromises that degrade its value). With the A9, A7 III or Sony A7 III, you can sit there at 10fps (or more with the A9) and keep the eye pin sharp, even while you lean down to take a sip of Earl Grey tea. I recall an online review comparing the A7R III with a DSLR that complained that the eye AF can sometimes be distracted by obstructions and they marked the camera down compared to the DSLR whose Eye-AF wasn’t even workable. The remedy for the focus point being distracted by obstructions during eye AF operation? Remove your finger from the eye-AF button and focus it normally, duhhh. At least you can see that has happened and you make the change in a fraction of a second.

Price. It is much cheaper. It’s the same price as the Canon 6D II, which is waaaay lower in performance in quite literally every way. I also don’t understand why Canon does not offer more technology when they are able to time travel. After all, how else did they find the sensor for the 6D II? Another explanation is that the Japan earthquake opened up a subterranean storage facility lost to the passage of time and that facility happened to contain hundreds of thousands of imaging sensors. I don’t know what really happened here, but it is fair to say that it’s beyond explanation. You expect unpleasant surprises when buying used cars from people who chew toothpicks and have a glint in their eye. You check everything twice as a result, or more sensibly jog on. You shouldn’t have to do that with a Canon camera, just to ensure they haven’t shipped it with a sensor that narrowly missed capturing The Resurrection.

With the above in mind, this camera will excel in all areas where amateurs use their camera (street, travel, landscape, family etc). However, I can see this camera being used by a lot of professional portrait and wedding photographers as well. It now has the AF and speed to really be taken seriously by people whose cameras need to cope with fast changing environments, movement, very low light and to make them money.

Sony’s Approach Makes Sense (For Users)

In a way, the Sony A7 III – A7R III line up reminds me of the Nikon D750 and Nikon D810. If you didn’t need the resolution or quite such a solid build, you could save a bunch and buy the D750 and retain many other important qualities. However, here enters the BIG Sony advantage: the A7 III and A7R III are packaged identically. The D750,810, 850 all have substantial physical differences that make them much harder to move between seamlessly. Not only do the Mk III Sony bodies not have this impediment, the new Mark III bodies are pretty easy to use alongside the previous generation. Not much changed on the outside and with the interface. For professional photographers who will use anything from 2-4 cameras to a location this matters. Many photographers will want to have a line up of cameras and throw a high resolution body in there, or perhaps a video monster, or a speed demon. Sony lets you do that with either zero or next to zero penalty. You can bet the Sony A7S III will follow the same philosophy. You can largely move between the Canon 5D IV and 5DS or 5DSR seamlessly in terms of operability. Here they do better than Nikon. However, the two sensors are from very different generations. The 5D IV sensor is much more up to date with 13.5 stops of DR and mucho malleability in processing. The 50mp sensor in the 5DSR is old tech and has only 12 stops of DR and much less malleability in post. So you’re still having to make mental adjustments when you shoot and you’ll notice a huge difference when you start processing. You won’t with the Sonys, either in use, or on the computer. One will simply have more pixels.

The Mirrorless Ascendancy

It hasn’t taken nearly as long as many expected for mirrorless cameras to challenge DSLRs with regard to AF tracking with no excuses made. The Sony A9 did that, right at the very top end and the matter is closed: mirrorless tracking AF can be every bit as good as the best available under decent light. However, in very poor light (think near darkness) I have yet to hear of a mirrorless camera that is as good as the best DSLRs at locking on or tracking. It remains to be seen whether the Sony A7 III can change this, but it seems unlikely. What we can say is that under all other conditions, mirrorless cameras are now offering such big advantages that the narrowing disadvantage just mentioned increasingly pales in comparison.

Fujifilm is the king of APS-C in my opinion. They produce brilliant products that I love. Sony does the same in Full-Frame and in a different way. They aren’t quite as ‘fun’ or intuitive, but they make up for this in sheer functionality and performance. Nikon is managing to keep DSLRs relevant and interesting (perhaps alongside Pentax), but Canon has long since stopped offering its users a reason not to move either to Nikon, or to mirrorless. They charge far more for less and offer next to zero hope of that changing any time soon. Despite the well-known commercial success of Canon as a whole, I am certain their myopia is hurting them in the camera division and will increasingly do so as time goes by. Regardless, it goes down extremely badly with customers. It is entirely possible they have identified that mirrorless will push out DSLRs over time and that they are investing pots of money in an amazing full-frame mirrorless system rather than DSLRs. However, this remains ‘vaporware’ (as they say) and disappointed Canon customers are already…. well, disappointed. There isn’t a single camera in the Canon line up I’d pay for with my own money, but across the line up they have many qualities I’d love to see in a camera. Canon just won’t make a single ‘non flagship’ camera with all those qualities, because the marketing department thinks they can ‘upsell’ you a 1DX, or persuade you to buy several models when all you need is one.

Of all the manufacturers, Sony has figured out that cynical product differentiation can be turned on it’s head and you might happily buy three A7 III bodies and not feel the pull of the A7R III or A9 at all. Equally, they’ve ensured that you can mix and match A7 III, A7R III, A7S III (coming, surely) and A9 models without a second thought. You can do this without feeling something has been deliberately withheld from a cheaper model (and which utterly p1sses you off), without paying an insane premium and without having to change hands and brains every time you pick up a different camera. Heck, your biggest problem is forgetting which one you’re actually using…..

Well done Sony! Huge, massive respect. Just as I felt the Fujifilm X-T2 was the coming of age of mirrorless APS-C: great specs, great performance and all in a wonderfully functional and fun package, the Sony A7 III is the undoubtedly the full-frame VolksKamera. The standard has been set against which all others will be measured, mirror or not!

Hi Thomas, that’s fair enough re Canon. I just think they deserve serious criticism (and a consumer backlash) for their string of hobbled cameras. Its not their slow progress on high end mirrorless that I am getting at – Nikon has been no different in this regard – it’s the way they’ve done such a woeful job of providing up to date good value cameras for their existing DSLR customers, when they could have done so. I think there are better ways to treat their heavily invested pro/prosumer photographers, rather than as ‘hostages’… who can be retained by the scary costs of switching and milked, rather than retained by the pleasure of staying with a brand that works hard to provide them with excellence and value for money. Canon does a lot right, but whoever has been steering the (camera) market segregation/product differentiation ship for the last five plus years has left a massive percentage of Canon Prosumer/Pro owners scratching their heads and wondering if Canon even has an interest in retaining them. I really can’t make sense of it (other than sheer cynicism) and firmly believe that without an appropriate response from the buying public, there will be no incentive for them to change. Their current ‘way’ is not good for any of us. Anyway, you’re right, it’s something that profoundly disappoints me, because I am someone who used to have a cupboard full of Canon kit. I do, however, understand that not everyone will share my view or think it a big deal.

Fujifilm has always had some models well below the price of the X-T20 and currently has the X-A10 and X-A20, which are just below and just above half the price of the X-T20. Sony has the A6000 still available, but they perhaps ought to pull something new out in this segment. M43 is perhaps a bit too strong in this area to make it worth them investing too much effort perhaps? The challenge Nikon and Canon face is that ‘Fort Pro-DSLR’ – an area where the margins are much higher than entry models – is under siege from mirrorless much earlier than everyone expected. They can’t just cede the cheap end of the consumer market and continue to dominate at the fatter end. If Canon and Nikon want to remain relevant, they will have to push hard and I am excited to see what they bring to market in the next year or so.

I understand what you meant now.
I have to agree that Canon’s update aren’t particularly exciting and their market segmentation feels cynical.

On the other hand, it’s partly why I chose a DSLR over a mirrorless camera. Since they’re not moving fast, I won’t be tempted to spend money on upgrades in the next few years. With mirrorless cameras, any one year old camera feels like a huge step backward compared to the current ones.

Of course, I’m sure that’s not possible for a working professional photographer but for amateurs with low-budget, I think it’s more sensible.

Hi Thomas, yes, arms races are always expensive! That said, even mirrorless is slowing down in the sense that all the weaknesses of the early cameras have been ironed out. This should mean development becomes a bit more like what we see with DSLRs: refinement, rather than revolution. That said, there are no ‘bad cameras’ these days. Only good and better ones for a given situation or user preference.

I’ve been shooting Fujifilm since the release of X-Pro 2 alongside my Nikon system. I also owned original A7S that I used mainly for video – however I shot one wedding with it(files were great, but handling and speed were terrible). It looks like ergonomics finally is getting better with A7III, but menus still remain the same old hot garbage. The buggiest problem I see with all A7 cameras are lenses. They’re expensive and big. Though their own native primes are not as big as Zeiss or Sigma, they’re slow to focus(especially 50mm). That’s were Nikon is brilliant – I picked up a set of three excellent G primes for the price of one Sony FE prime! You HAVE to go Zeiss or Sigma. But again, those lenses are MASSIVE. Just take a look at new Sigma ART for E-mount. Essentially they just added an adapter to their existing lenses which adds about 4 centimetres to already long lenses. To balance them out on a body, you have to use some sort of grip. So you’re basically stepping back into DSLR weight/size territory. But that’s the reason majority of photographers were switching from DSLRs in first place! That’s why I love my Fuji setup – I could fit camera, and 3 primes in one tiny Ona Bowery bag! For sure, FF has an IQ and DOF advantage, but you have to live with large lenses and high prices. As for me, A7 series is a perfect match for Leica M lenses – adapter is vey small and lenses balance really well on A7 bodies. Unfortunately focus peaking implementation on older Sony cameras was not perfect(I shot extensively with A7SII), so hopefully they fixed it in A7III(I didn’t have a chance to try A7RIII yet). On other hand, I really love focus peaking on Fujifilm cameras(especially with addition of Dual Display on X-T2). And firmware updates! Ah, the glorious firmware updates! Fujifilm are way ahead in that department. I’m sticking with Fujifilm for all the reason above for now, as it is a fantastic IQ/size/weight/price package. But I had some vintage Leica glass, I’d be jumping on A7III bandwagon 🙂

Hi Andrii, I had been hoping Sigma was going to release some pure FE designs, but it seems not at this stage. I wonder what happened to the teaser of a lens that was quite a bit smaller than the Zony 35mm f1.4 Distagon? A few of these re-roled DSLr designs would fill holes in the line up (the 24mm f1.4 for example) but, as you say, they are no smaller than DSLR designs. It is worth noting, however, that even where size and weight savings cannot be found, the newest mirrorless designs are matching the DSLRs on their strengths and offering a few notable advantages at the same time. FF mirrorless can do ‘tiny’ but can also outdo FF DSLRs in many areas, albeit with little to no size and weight advantages. The 24-70 GM, for example, is the same size as a Canon 24-70 f2.8 L II with an adaptor on.

I have not found AF speed to be an issue with most of my FE lenses. Some of the older ones (35mm f2.8) are a bit slower than the newer designs, but I have heard the Zony 50mm f1.4 is very slow. Is this the one you were referring to? I have the 55 f1.8 Sonnar and don’t feel much interest in the 50mm f1.4. It seems a lot more for not much more usefulness to me. The 85 GM is fine and much faster than my Canon 85 f1. L II, but not as quick as the 85 Batis. The 25mm Batis is zippier than the Sony 28 f2, as I recall, but I find the 28mm fast enough. Sony has provided us with the excellent 85mm f1.8 lens at half the price of the Batis, but they don’t as yet have a zippy 50mm, 21mm or 24mm. Zeiss does offer the Batis and Loxia options, but it’s not the seamless line up that Nikon or Canon offers, for example.

I agree that the Sony menus are still way too complicated, but the scope for customisation is so extensive, that I don’t need to go into them. A customised My Menu and Fn menu are all I need. Routine stuff is available thru the Function button and the less frequent ‘innards’ are set to My Menu. I think the problem Sony faces is that the cameras offer so many features that there is a lot to cram in there.

I’m still getting to know my Fujifilm f2 lenses, but love their compactness and excellent performance already. They too can drop into a case I bought for a three lens Leia M outfit, which the Sony can’t quite manage. As you say, its in the lenses.

I find your points very persuasive. As a 5DII user, Who wants a new camera (weight, bulk, evf, banding etc.etc) I find myself in a quandry if I want to stay with Canon. The slightly lighter 6D II, which may have been attractive, is just an insult. No better DR than my ten year old camera! And no joystick! This A7III or the A7rIII may be the right direction.

At the moment I’m in Burma again and yesterday I was shooting in an outdoor covered market, and the lighting conditions were severe – darkish inside and screaming tropical light from outside. With B&W film I had no problems with dealing with this, but the Canon struggles, the extra DR of the A7III would be welcome, as would pre-seeing what I get with the evf, and occasionally using the flip up screen.

Hi Robert, I was in the same position was you but was convinced to upgrade from the 5D II to the 5D III. While it was a better camera in all respects, the sensor improvements were only marginal. At this point, I wasn’t heavily invested in Canon and seriously considered moving to Nikon. In hindsight I should have jumped ship then. I found the same problem as you: having been used to B&W film, I still had to shoot the 5D III like transparency: expose to avoid highlight clipping and accept the shadows you get. There was some room for shadow lifting, but not much. The advantage of the Sony sensors is a double whammy: not only do you get two to three stops more shadow detail captured in your exposure, but you have far more latitude opening them up than you do those in the Canon file. The difference is vast and much more like using B&W neg in the massive latitude you have. The upshot of this is that you can tackle the same sort of subjects you used to be able to deal with with B&W film. With the 5D II and III I was routinely discarding subjects because I knew the camera would not come close to being able to provide me with a workable file. This still happens with the latest sensors, but it is very uncommon and there are workarounds that are blindingly obvious, but which I did not figure out in my early days with digital i.e. flashing or fogging paper in the darkroom to bring down a bald white sky so that there is tone on paper is no different to dropping the top end of the curve in LR so that you have tone in file/on print. It’s not real data of course, but it looks no different with a bald white sky!

I’m not sure there is much light at the end of the tunnel with Canon. The 5D IV is a very good camera and the sensor is light years ahead of the 5D II & III, but the cost is out of kilter with what’s being offered. The difficult bit for you is the cost of lenses, or the compromises of adapting them. It has been expensive and bumpy for me to navigate away from Canon, but I am so glad I did so. Even if you were to drop a format, you can still get vastly superior performance out of APS-C than you have with the 5D II. A Fujifilm outfit would be the least expensive option and more compact than Sony too, but there is no doubt that the latest Sony cameras have superior IQ still. If I were to put an estimated number on it, I’d say that if an X-T2 is three rungs better than the 5D II, the latest Sony sensors is a run (possibly a 1.5) better than that. You get a night and day improvement in dynamic range and file malleability just by getting away from sensors that use off chip Analogue to Digital Convertors (ADCs). That’s pretty well any sensor not made by Canon. Even my M43 Panasonic GM1 had slightly better DR and much better shadow recovery than my Canon 5D III. You can get that sensor in a £329 Panny GX800 (with a 12-32mm lens)!

And yes, as good as the A7R II was, the Mk III is a much more polished all round camera. This is the coming of age of the Sony FE system, without a doubt. It is also likely that there will be a Mk IV generation around before Canon upgrades the 6d II and 5D IV, if recent cycles are anything to go by. We’ll see the X-T3 in the next 12 months, most likely too. The only major disruptor would be Canon releasing a new high end FF mirrorless system that either used EF mount, or integrated it with adaptors that have no performance cost. It’s certainly possibly, but I struggle to see them pulling that off in one fell swoop.

I am also thinking of using some of my M lenses on the A7III/rIII, if I can focus quickly and accurately enough (an advantage over the Fuji, for me). I really like small lenses with wide apertures, and this now seems like an impossibility in the current offerings. In Sony there are the two 35/2.8 offerings (small, but not fast) the 55/1.8 fast enough, but not really small, but everything else is as big as Canon’s lenses (even the 28/2 is long). The Fuji’s f 2 lenses are also not that short and don’t have the focus separation I’d like. The exception there is the 35/1.4, which would probably do. All the third party offerings for Sony just seem to be making the same old bazookas, even the new Tokina 50mm f 1.4 announced yesterday! Sigma, Tamron, Samyung, Tokina, Sony, Zeiss what differentiates them all now? Only price, I think. An M 10 or 246 would solve all that, but the price and no zoom are not attractive. I keep just thinking this over and here I am still with my ten-year old Canon brick.

It’s a tough one. Very personally, I don’t miss manual focus much. Back button focus with AF detached from the shutter allows me to zone focus when I want to, or go back to AF for each frame too.

The Loxia lenses have a lovely focus action, but of course are manual only, but overall, the Fujifilm system offers something closer to compactness of the M system than anything in the Sony camp. I think the separation between Sony and Fujifilm is getting that bit clearer: Sony is pushing into DSLR territory more and more (with some compact options from Zeiss and one or two from Sony) but with performance benefits, whereas Fujifilm is consolidating where APS-C holds real size benefits over FF. I think it might be fair to expect more Batis lenses in time, which may fill a middle ground in size and aperture within the Sony FE line up. I’d really welcome that. I was a little perplexed by the large 80mm f2.8 WR Macro Fujifilm released, because it suggests Fujifilm may too have caught the ‘best at all costs’ bug, but I guess they were just giving their users more options. If I were in your position, I think I would think more about Fujifilm. You’d get vastly better image quality than you have with the Canon and much more compactness. It comes with its own compromises, but really is a superb middle ground between DSLr and Leica M. FWIW, I find AF so dependable with mirrorless that I rarely have need for manual focusing unless I am on a tripod doing very deliberate work, in which case its a non issue. As always, YMMV. An M10 or M246 would be lovely but the fear of very expensive and lengthy repairs is something I think would always hang over me, even after the purchase price has been dealt with. Bottom line: I’m not rich enough!

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The Author

Award-winning photographer, ex-soldier and father of two, Thomas Stanworth has spent over a decade working and photographing in trouble spots from Sierra Leone to Afghanistan. His work has been exhibited in the US, UK, Europe and Asia. Read More…

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